In a Green Shade eBook

And so indeed it is. The peasant now has his
foot on the degrees of the throne, and has only to
step up, he and his mates of the mine, the forge,
the foundry and the railroad—­to step up
and lay hand to the orb and sceptre.

If I had misgivings, and if those, when imparted to,
were shared by an old friend of mine who still gives
me six hours a day of his strength and skill when
the weather and his rheumatics can hit it off together,
I may say at once that though they were renewed in
me by the late threat of the railwaymen arrogantly
hurled at the only Government in my recollection which
has made arrogance in asking almost a necessary stage
in negotiation, they had been present for a long time—­beyond
Mr. Smillie’s wild proposals of direct action,
beyond the Yorkshire miners and the flooded coalfields;
back to the day when electricians refused to light
the Albert Hall, and Merchant Seamen refused passage
to some politician or another because they didn’t
like his politics. One and each of those direct
and unsteady actions made me shiver for the men with
their feet on the throne’s degrees. And
now a Railway Strike, which has injured every one
and will throw back the railwaymen and their Labour
Party for many a year! If these things are done
in the green wood, I asked my friend, what will be
done in the dry?

He couldn’t answer me but by asking in his turn
questions which were but a variation of my own.
He said: “Our people don’t seem to
understand anything but ‘each man for himself.’
The miners hold up the country for higher wages, and
the country has to pay them; the railwaymen do the
same, and the country must find double fares and high
freight. They hit their own class hardest of all,
because dear coal and high tariffs touch everybody.
And they don’t even help themselves, because
directly wages are raised, up goes the price of everything.
Now what I want you to tell me is how are they going
to stop all that when they are the Government?
For it will have to stop.”

He is right: it will have to stop; but I don’t
see how the Labour Party is going to stop it.
So far as I can make out, the Labour Party, as a responsible,
political body, has no control whatsoever over the
trade unions; and the trade unions, as such, none over
their members. How, then, is one to look forward
with comfort to the establishment of a Labour Government?
It will take a readier speech than even Mr. Webb’s,
a more confident than even Mr. Smillie’s to illuminate
this smoke-blurred scene whereon we make out every
trade union preying upon Mr. George’s vitals
(which are, unfortunately, for the moment our own
vitals), and with a success so disastrously easy as
to make any prospects of a return to sane, honest,
dignified or just government almost hopeless!
Mr. George is destroying himself hand over fist, and
the sooner the better; but one does not want to see
England go down with him. I am all for anarchy
myself when once it is thoroughly grasped by everybody
that anarchy means minding your own business.
But we are far from that as yet. Anarchy at present
means minding, and grudging, other people’s
business. Such anarchy is not government, but
plundering with both hands.